Facepalm

Yeah, apparently I can earn a PhD in mathematics, but I can't figure out how to video chat on my tablet.

Appreciative Ape

For those of you who have kept me on your feeds and blog rolls during my stints of absence, I thank you.

Over the last year, my life has taken a few unexpected turns. One is that it looks as though one of my novels will be published.  To that end, I have started a new blog under my pen name, Beth Bishop. I will be keeping it up regularly, maybe not every day, but regularly, and I will keep you all posted on the progress of the book.

For now, the Ape will remain, especially if I ever end up publising the series that is my heart and soul. If you would be so kind, check out Beth's blog, Upon A Time.

With Love,
The Ape

Ape Update

I had a baby February 10, 2012.

I got my PhD March 20, 2012.

Two huge challenges met.

It's been such a busy year. This is a start of sorts, I suppose, and an end. I don't know if I'll resume posting regularly here. Everything seems like such a chore when you have a baby, including the baby.

After over a year away from it, I've started writing again. I don't expect it to be any more fruitful than it was before, but I'm doing it.  It makes me happy, and that is what I need right now.

If anyone reads this, I appreciate it.

--The Ape

Been A While

I've been detained for some time now.

Hopefully, I'll have something more meaningful to post in the coming weeks.

Ape After My Heart

L's sister and her husband are bringing their daughter down to our neck of the woods for weekly softball coaching.  Last night, they stopped by to hang out for a bit before heading home.

We were sat around my kitchen table, them enjoying burgers and fries, and all of us enjoying shakes (I have to admit that McDonald's has really stepped it up in the shake department).  After they ate, the adults talked, and my niece asked for some paper.  L brought her some along with my colored pencils.

The girl LOVES to draw, write, and read.  As she was drawing a picture of Mario, she noticed that the paper had print on the back of it.  "This paper is used," she said.

"It's scrap paper," I said.  She looked at me funny, so I elaborated.  "It's paper that we already used once, and we saved it to write or draw stuff on the back so both sides get used before we throw it away."

She flipped over a few sheets, some of which contained old versions of my dissertation, until she came to the basic skills exam that we give our future elementary ed teachers.  It's based on 4th, 5th, and 6th grade math.

"Ooh, pick one for me," said my seven-year old niece. 

After looking, I found one and made the numbers smaller, so then we all sat around helping her read and work through the problem.  She had trouble understanding the need to round up to whole packages of things (she's is only 7), so L gave her another example with packs of gum.  Once she understood, she wanted to move on to something else. 

"Pick another, pick another!"

So while I continued to chat with her mom, L taught her fraction basics, even giving her really tricky scenarios and word problems.  She had so much fun, and it made my heart go pitter-pat.  She wants to spend some of her summer finishing her first grade math workbook. 

See?  Math can be fun.

Primate at Peace

Heavy-duty construction is taking place on the street the math building faces.  Power, internet, water, the works.  The torn-open street will be closed until August.

Due to the construction, it's loud on the bottom and second floor on the front of the building.  Hence, the department booked rooms in other buildings and scattered across campus for summer classes.  While it's a small chore for the professors, it makes for a quiet building.

I don't hear students dragging their feet down the halls.  I don't hear them blabbing too loudly to whomever on their phones.  The building smells like books and paper - like a library with freshly waxed floors - instead of like summer b.o.

The professors I meet in the halls seem...more relaxed, even happier in some cases.  Maybe they are enjoying getting out of the building, walking the campus before the day gets too hot.  Trapped in a classroom or an office all day, it's easy to forget how beautiful the grounds are and how lucky we are that the tornado missed the university.

Before long, we'll miss the sounds of the vending machines, the elevator, the flipflops, and heavy sighs, but for now, it's peaceful.    

My neighbor's gardenia bush is blooming.  It perfumes the entire street, and when I walk by, I close my eyes and feel as though I float.  I want to bury my face in the blooms, absorb the scent and take it with me, keep it with me.  It's just not possible.  In another week, the heat will take its toll, but come autumn, it will bloom, and again my street will smell heavenly. 

I Like to Graph It, Graph It

You may have done The Worm, The Robot, and maybe even The Macarena, but have you ever done The Graph?  Kudos to Mister x² + y² for thinking outside the box.  He's the only identified dancer who isn't a function.  (x² + y² = constant is a circle.)  While he's not mathematically significant, Mister Crap gets a point for flexibility and reach. 

Industrious Apes

I've seen commercials for "Go Build Alabama," but I had no idea that Mike Rowe was devoted to a country-wide quest to encourage young people to go into a craft or trade.  This is amazing, and he's absolutely right.  College isn't for everyone, and we badly need skilled craftsmen to keep the world we enjoy working.  Being a craftsman isn't a "boobie prize."  One day soon, it will be a prestige. 

For more information on his programs, visit www.mikeroweworks.com

iiieee!!!

It's not as funny, if I have to explain it, but her tan lines are part of the graph of the tangent function.

Aimless Ape

I'm in the 'tween stage where spring just ended, though be it in an unorthodox manner due to the tornado, and summer hasn't begun. I'm not working, and I'm not working on anything.

Dr. C is apparently incommunicado. Maybe on vacation, maybe just avoiding me. We all need a break. We all need to recover.

I'm not writing so much lately. I can't get in the right frame of mind to be creative. I'm just not interested in any of my current projects.

I've been gaming a lot lately. I think it saps my imganative juices as well as giving me freaky dreams. However, it is something I enjoy tremndously, and something fun L and I do as a team.

I'm tired for no reason, and I hate feeling like that.

I'm just hoping Dr. C gets in touch with me soon.  I need to get my brain back in gear. I think that, once I do, the rest will come back online, too.

Dr. E said...

"I can use about half of my house."

He has five trees on his house.  His neighborhood is demolished. It's the worst of times in Tuscalosa, AL, kiddies.  So many people have lost so much across the entire state.  The mile-wide tornado that tore across the middle of town stayed on the ground for over 70 miles. We're pulling together, assessing, and preparing for clean-up.  I can't even begin to tell you everything that is lost, including so many lives.  I still haven't heard back from some students.

The tornado came within 1 mile of L's sister's house, and the one that destroyed Sipsey and Cordova came within 1/2 a mile of his brother's house. His cousins, aunt, and uncle in Huntsville were narrowly missed as well. 

My immediate family got lucky. We've only had to deal with power outages and phone issues, but all my cousins, aunts, and uncles in Pleasant Grove lost their homes.  One of my cousins and his roommate rode out the storm in his closet and came out to find the rest of the apartment gone.

Three grad students lost their homes, but amazingly, no one from the math department or their families lost their lives.  For that, we are all so thankful.  Tomorrow night, the algebraists and topologists plan to hold Aftermath as scheduled.  I think we can all use a drink.  We need to talk about it, to commiserate and to toast survival.  I think it's just what we need.

Unethical Apes

My friend (and co-worker) and I were discussing the various ways students will try to get out of doing work and paying attention. They come to class but play on their phones, and it often happens that the ones who play are the ones who are failing. Coincidence? No, sir! We wonder if they don't realize that if they act like that on a job, they won't have a job for very long.

Then, my friend said this: "If everyone was just honest and did the work they were supposed to do, they would pass."  Then, she laughed and added, "If everyone followed those two rules, the world would be a better place."

I agree, but I don't think it's likely to happen.

Thanks again to Dave, finder of awesome math/science webcomics.

Ape Observation

     Yesterday, as I was driving across campus from dropping L off at the lab, it was early enough that I didn't have to watch too carefully for students darting across the streets.  It makes me smile, just a bit, to think that the kiddos are like squirrels, except that the University squirrels know better than to run into the road without looking.  
     I was thinking about how many roads now have buildings in the middle of them.  By that, I mean that the University built all these roads to connect the campus and then decided that 1) it was too connected to be safe for foot traffic and 2) they needed the space for new engineering buildings and rehab/expansion of some old ones.  If we're going to cram 30K people onto this campus by 2015, we've got to put them somewhere. Don't know who will teach them, but at least they'll have a nice room to sit in.
     I saw a crane over what was the other half of the road I was traveling and thought about these radical changes.  People that went to school here back when I was in my first go-round can't believe how much it's changed, and they can hardly navigate campus when they get off the main drag.
     But one thing that never changes is seeing students walk or ride bikes to class with large packs on their backs.  I love that.  I love to see the engineering students with their T-squares poking awkwardly out of their packs and an armload of drafting supplies.  There goes an art student with an enormous portfolio case and a music student with an instrument case.  The beauty, beyond the fact that they carry tools of the subject they love, is that their hands are too full with real world stuff to bother with cell phones.  These overburdened ones don't have the finger and hand availability to text or chat as they walk, and so they look up. They watch where they're going.  They observe.  They learn.  I love that.   

iiieee!!! Math-related Comics

Two of my favorites, both of which are on my office door.

Calvin and Hobbes: Math is a religion

xkcd: Purity

Spring and Summer Plans

Three weeks of the spring semester remain, and I'm hoping that Dr. C and I can finish our paper by then or shortly thereafter.  We are so close, just a few finishing touches and a proof.  We'll send it off for review, and as spring turns to summer, I'll start adding to it to make my dissertation. 

I hope to write the vast majority of it this summer.  I'm not going to teach, which leaves my days free to write on the dissertation and on my novels.  I hope that by the time August gets here, I'll have the dissertation all but finished and I'll have my next novel ready for querying. 

In the fall, I'll present at the Algebra seminar, kind of a warm-up for the main event.  Since four of the attendees are on my dissertation committee, the idea is to introduce them to my work.  That way, when I get into my defense, it will be more of a short talk than a grilling.  Dr. C told me what I should expect, which made me feel so much better. 

I know other PhDs that can spout research, names, and dates like second nature, but I really don't have a mind for that kind of thing.  Also, it's quite up in the air who actually first proved many of the theorems in the branch of group theory I'm delving into, so saying "So-and-so gets credit for discovering this," may not be true.  It's just that particular person got pissy enough to want his name on it and the other people were like, "Whatever dude.  Have it if it means so much to you."  No matter what game you're playing, there's always one, right?  Sometimes, more than one.  Well, I supposed if my teaching load, promotions, and so on were based on me publishing, I might get pissy too.

The only thing left to do, other than write the thing, is make sure all the paperwork is complete in enough time.  Since I plan to defend in January or February of next year, I should have plenty of time to get it all done with enough time for "Oops, we forgot this."  I don't want this to not happen because I forgot to file my admission to candidacy form. 

I just...when I got my master's and started work, I never dreamed I'd come back to school and actually finish my PhD.  Now, it looks like it might really happen.  I might actually complete a major life goal.  It's pretty big for me.

Thanks to Dave (one of L's Navy buddies) for this one.  It's true, and these former Navy nukes know. 

Ape Real Fools

When that Aprill with his shoures sote

The droght of Marche hath perced to the rote,

Ans bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred in the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye,

That slepen al the night with open yë

(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages):

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages...

           --Geoffrey Chaucer The Canturbury Tales: Prologue

In a nutshell?  Spring fever - we all want to get outside and enjoy some fresh air and sunshine, even if it means a religious pilgrimage.

I see my students look longingly out the windows of the classroom, wishing they were on a blanket on the quad or on a chaise by the pool.  I've gotten in the habit of closing the blinds so that we can focus on the math.

This time of year always reminds me of one student in particular.  His name was Andrew, a trig student that I had in the first spring after my return to the University.  My classes were back-to-back, and in the ten minutes between them, I would often chat with the students as the first class trickled out and the second class trickled in.  Spring fever having hit and some students having lost all hope of passing, only half the second class attended on a regular basis, and I became friendly with those fifteen or so people. 

So it was in the five minutes before class began that I chatted with them, and Andrew made a grand appearance.  "I made it," he proclaimed, drowning out all other conversation. 

There was good reason for his enthusiasm.  He had three unexcused absences, and since he needed to replace his lowest test grade with his final exam score, he couldn't miss anymore days.  He had to come to class, no matter what.  No matter what indeed.

His white three-button shirt and khaki pants were soaked and streaked with mud and grass stains.  The knee was torn out of one leg of his pants, and I could see that his knuckles, his lower lip, and one of his eyebrows were bleeding.  He swayed and clung to the doorframe to remain upright.

"Andrew, what happened to you?" I asked.

"Whhheeeell."  He blinked slowly, and his breath washed into the room.  He was completely shitfaced.  "See, I went out last night and got really drunk." 

I nodded.  The rest of the class was now fully rapt and chuckling.  "I think you still are."

"Oh, I am."  He nodded.  "I, ah, left the bar, but I never made it home.  I haven't been to sleep yet.  Then it was like, 'Oh fuck you guys!  I gotta go to trig.  I can't miss anymore days.' So I got my buddy's bike and rode here."  He made locomotive motions with fisted hands.  I nodded and fought a smile.  "And like, I wrecked, and I got in a fight with a sprinkler."

"That explains the blood and the mud."

One of the girls in the class who knew him said, "You drunk idiot."  He pointed at her and then kind of staggered into the nearest desk. 

"Andrew, do you have a phone?" I asked.  He nodded.  "Okay.  Can you call someone to come pick you up?"  He nodded.  "Okay.  I think you should because you can be arrested for being drunk in a University facility.  I don't want to have to call the cops on you."

"But, I can't miss any more days," he whined.

"I won't count it against you."

He banged his elbow against the wall as he stood in a tazmanian devil style manner.  "Really?"  He reached into his pocket, smearing blood on its edge, to dig out his phone.  When I nodded, he dialed.  After a few moments, he said, "Dude, come get me at the front."  He staggered out of the classroom.  "No, she's totally cool.  She's not even going to call the cops!"

The class and I stepped out into the hall to watch him go.  He ran down the hall, tripped over his own feet, fell, got up, and resumed running.  Before he made it to the stairs that would take him outside, he shouted, "Woo-hoo," with fist pumps toward the ceiling and then executed a surpsingly agile heel-click.

"Well," I said as I surveyed my remaining students.  "Now that the entertainment portion of the class is over, let's get to work."  I ushered the class back into the room and continued my lecture on sequences and series.

Ape Update: Curriculum, All for Naught

"And the people in the houses all went to the university where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same."  -- from "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds

Despite our warnings and refusal to teach the elementary ed courses if they were no longer hands-on, the department head buckled under the pressure of the provost.  So much hard work went into making the math portion of the program into something that could shine, something that could make other schools look at my school in what the rest of the country considers to be a backward state, and say, "We should be doing that!"  I can only be glad the marvelous woman who developed it and did all the hard work isn't here to see it destroyed. 

Starting in the fall, the goal is to cram more people into the classes and shove them through the program as quickly as possible.  I don't know when education at this place became about turning out a product, but it's a damned tragedy.  Powerless, I can do nothing about it.